Buckwheat Blueberry Pancakes

In Russia, they used to believe that the French did not eat buckwheat but fed it to the frogs. A rumor circulated in the early 20th, during the “Dictatorship of Military Communism” (Karl Marx’ concept implemented by Lenin) that one day Konstantin Stanislavsky, the renown theater director, received a parcel from Paris delivered by a stranger. Those were dangerous times when there was virtually no communication with anyone outside of Russia. There was also virtually no food – the population was starving. Thus, when Stanislavsky opened the anonymous package and found a bag of buckwheat with no note of explanation, it was logically assumed that his grandmother, the French actress Marie Varlet, whom he had never met, suddenly got compassionate regarding her abandoned family’s plight and sent them some food. Buckwheat was cooked the traditional Russian way, as kasha, and instantly devoured.